Dubai is closer to Russia

Ideas to exclude from foreign messengers the official correspondence of all structures, one way or another subordinate to the state, have swept the information field with renewed vigor, and this time with a clear focus on the WhatsApp messenger. Other services were also mentioned, but it is much more interesting to note who the prohibitive “recommendations” bypassed. For example Telegram.

A messenger with an operations center in Dubai and registration in the Virgin Islands can hardly be called Russian, although its founder Pavel Durov is well remembered in the country since the creation of VKontakte. Relations between the Russian authorities and Telegram cannot be called cloudless. It was blocked, unblocked, and now in the semi-official field it is defiantly ignored, despite its wide popularity. But hints break through. Thus, State Duma deputy Anton Gorelkin, proposing to ban civil servants from using WhatsApp, clarified: it doesn’t matter whether “there will be a Russian alternative or a Dubai one.”

Meanwhile, the Russian authorities and Pavel Durov have clearly common interests in this matter: the entrepreneur himself is at war with WhatsApp. The founder of Telegram has been openly criticizing a competitor for several years now – either for the decision of its creators to sell the messenger to the owner of Facebook (Meta’s activities have been declared extremist in Russia), either because of the vulnerabilities found, or in the framework of specific professional discussions, for example, should messengers include end-to-end encryption of all chats.

The hostilities in Ukraine, which sharply aggravated Russia’s relations with the West, seem to have only strengthened its relations with Telegram. Over the months of numerous attacks on a variety of foreign services and programs, it seems that not a single bad word was said about him. And Telegram itself does not block the channels of either the presenters from Russian TV or the same deputies. Moreover, it has become one of the main sources of dissemination of military information in the vein of the Russian authorities. The Bell wrote in June that news and political channels that cover the special military operation from the standpoint of its supporters have shown the greatest growth in Telegram since February.

I doubt that any of the Russian officials will support the attempt to declare Telegram a “foreign service”. Many of them run channels and convey information to citizens, and share the platform with the media and channels that lean in a completely different direction. In Telegram, we can find hosts from state TV, and associates of imprisoned oppositionists, and the entire spectrum of media – from TASS to Meduza and Dozhd announced as foreign agents. In this sense, the site is still neutral. And so far, it seems that Pavel Durov is the best in this story – both the metrics are growing, and WhatsApp is under the gun.